In this episode of Digital Podcaster. I'm speaking with previous guest, who's now back on for a third time, Jay Yao. Jay reached out to me about a week ago and asked me about my shooting setup for my videos because he wants to get into more video creation. And this is something I get asked all the time. I've done workshops on it. If you've seen my videos, you've seen that I've been able to produce a pretty high quality of video. And so when he asked me that, I was like, of course, Jay has given so much. And he was on here. He walked us all through Squadcast when it was announced that acquired Squadcast, he's given so much. And I was like, you know what, Jay? I get asked this question all the time. Can we chat about this on the podcast or chat about it in a recorded setting so I could use it for the podcast so it can help other people? Because I know the same questions you're going to have, and things you're wondering are also what other people are going to be wondering as well. So he thankfully said yes. And so what you're hearing is a conversation between Jay and I where he's asking me about my video setup. And we get into the weeds around the gear I'm using. We get into how I approach it. If I was filming, like, product videos versus talking head videos, lighting everything from batteries to what my microphone's plugged into all of this stuff. It's a really in depth look at what I use to make content consistently and what I do on social media and in this podcast. Like, I'm speaking to you right now, so I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jay. Let's dive in. This is the show for Digital Creators by Digital Creators, hosted by me, Dylan Schmidt, a Los Angeles based content creator who loves to blend marketing, creativity, and business. Join in as we explore online entrepreneurship, creator best practices, and more. Each week, I'll bring you interviews with successful creators, tips and tricks for growing your online presence, and simple insights into the latest trends and strategies I'm seeing and using in the space. Welcome to digital, Podcaster. So you have your camera at 4K. Is that what you shoot on when you do all your social media content and stuff like that? Yeah, most of it. If you see me sitting at the desk, this is my setup. I'm using a Sony A seven C camera, which has the sigma 16 millimeter 1.4 lens that's just on a it's not even a tripod. It's just like a camera stand. And now I have, like, an iPad teleprompter set up here so I can look at the camera and see your beautiful face. Thank you. I have a dummy battery in there so I don't have to worry about charging any batteries. Right? That's a good one. And then I have the HDMI out I think it's like a mini or a micro HDMI out of the camera that's going into my computer hub, my USB hub. Right. And then from there, I'm using Ecamm live. Okay? To do the recording if I'm just doing it myself. But if I'm doing like an interview, of course, then I just use. But let me ask you this. How do you set up your teleprompter? Do you have the teleprompter and then you have the iPad? Do you buy the whole setup, the teleprompter setup, or is it just using the iPad as teleprompter? So I've done a few different versions of this right now and what I invested in just a couple of weeks ago, which is like, my latest setup, which I was like, you know, I should have done this a while ago. So I have my camera, I'm using I'll tell you, let me look up what it's called. Also, you have an actual teleprompter set up, not just like, the iPad in front of you, but your iPad is actually lay flat and then it project onto the teleprompter so you can see what the iPad is projecting. And then your camera is sitting behind the mirror, per se. Yes. And it's called the Desk View t three teleprompter. Okay. And it attaches on the lens of the camera. Oh. So because I have like a small I think I got the smallest iPad you could get because I wanted it to use it just for the setup. So I was like, what's the cheapest, smallest one? Basically, because I don't need it to be fancy. Okay. Because it's just going to stay there. So it attaches on the lens of the camera. The iPad itself is right below the teleprompter. It's got like a clip on it. Then it's USBC out and that just goes also to my dock. So I have my main display right on my desk here for my computer. But I'm using a MacBook Pro, so I also have the MacBook Pro as well as a secondary display. So what I'm doing is using a app called Better Display. I thought Apple has a native app as well. No, right. But to fine tune it, like tweak it because the image has to be reversed on the iPad. Got it. Yeah. So if not, you're just going to see everything, like either mirrored or upside down. Exactly. And it does, like, no good. So I use the better display app. And basically what I'm seeing right now on the iPad, but it's really, like on the teleprompter is a mirror of my MacBook Pro screen. So I have like, two displays, but the teleprompter is also like a display, but it's mirroring my MacBook Pro screen. Yeah. Do you have your autofocus on your camera? Because every time I see your hand in front of the camera, it just like, zoom into your hand. Look at that. Amazing hand. Amazing hand. That's a great hand right there, ladies and gentlemen, that's a hand that you know, you want to marry to. You know, the hand will do great work, and, you know, it's great at doing, like, look at look at that. Look at my fingerprints. Nobody steal my fingerprints. But yeah. Have you thought about just using what do they call it? The manual focus rather than auto focus? Yeah. So I like to not think, and I like speed because there's too many things going on when you're recording yourself. So I'm trying to minimize everything. So I think I have it in aperture priority on my camera, but I don't really care because you think about the final product. If it was, like, something that I was really concerned about, I just want it to be set up and go, there's too many points of failure. You know what I mean? Right, yeah. And also it's good when you do a product review that you have, like, auto zoom, that you can also auto zoom, auto focus. So you can show the product, and it will focus on the product. And they have to think about it. Exactly. Yeah. And then you still have that what did they call it? The depth of field. The depth of field when you're showing the product. And that's great. And you don't have to think about it. You don't have to be like, okay, I have to manually change the lens or wherever, or you do it, the app. And if you have the app stop more than four, everything would just look bland. Everything is like there's no focus on one thing. Yeah. And that's what everybody that I talked to wants. They want that soft looking background, so it's kind of blurry, and I want that, too, but I don't want to mess something up, because for me, I still do it sometimes, and I think sometimes when I have the lower aperture, but if I record something and then I'm like, I'm kind of out of focus. Right. And that is like what? And I recorded it. And then you maybe even start editing. Maybe you've already gotten into the edit, and then you realize it. So that's such a bummer. So I try to make it as literally just simple plug and play. So I use a lot of this stuff on auto. Yeah, because you know how small the Led screen is on the camera. There's no way you can see, like, okay, now you're focused or you're not on focus. Yeah. You have that thing that on the border on your face, like, okay, if these things show up, means you're in focus, but you can't hardly see them. Yeah, I've been doing the in person podcasts in my local community, too, and I record them. I have another camera, a Sony Zve one that's oh, that's a new one, right? Yeah, it's new. That's a new one. And I just was like, I'll just use the wide angle lens and just try to keep it auto or whatever and just go but when you're sitting back far, like you just said, the screen is tiny and I can't really see what is happening on the screen. I have an idea, but I thought it would be a little bit easier. And what I found with the first couple is like, there's this breathing focus issue. So the second interview I made it like a wider aperture, or I guess it'd be a smaller aperture. It was like a higher number. That always confuses me. And I think I set it to, like, eleven, maybe f eleven. What? Everything looks as like everything looked exactly the same, Dylan. Everything. It's in focus. Yeah, but for the interviews, it wasn't totally important. Got it. Because it was audio first and it was like the video secondary, but it was like hard to look for details. Yeah. I felt like Apple cho eleven. That means your space have to be pretty bright then. Yeah, right. Yeah. And most of the places like natural lighting. There's a saying. What is it? There's a saying. I'm American, so I don't know any saying. So there's like a photography saying called F Eleven and be there. And I think there's even a documentary called that. Yeah, it's a feature film about iconic photographer Burke Ozil. I remember watching that and I was like, it's always stuck in my head, just the title of it. But he did a lot of street photography, I believe, and it was all just like, keep it in F Eleven because you don't want to get the wrong thing into focus. And so many people obsess over this sharp quality, which I think serves a point. Oh, wow. I think obviously sharp quality, but also the lenses these days, even if everything's in focus, it still looks sharper. So I'm not really I don't know. Sometimes I look at my own background, I'm like, it looks like a green screen. Yeah, well, and at the same, like, do you really need those blurred background? I get it. It creates some sort of Christopher Nolan quality oppenheimer type of feel. But at the same time you're just podcasting. Yeah. And it's like, what do you want? People that talk to me about this type of stuff, they want the quality I have. But I just think for sure, I mean, it definitely stands out. I see a total like I'm going to be the first to say I obsess over the quality and I have tested a lot of what actually matters and there's so many other things that matter over than the quality. And also it always looked weird if you are the only one that's like blood black ground and then everything looks great, and then if you're doing remote and then all your guests is like Apple face cam or whatever, or FaceTime camera and then kind of weird. I'm like that consistency is just not there. Well, you know what, too? If it's for social media and you're posting it, I found sometimes where the guest's quality is not as good as mine, and it just feels like I don't know, it isn't totally consistent. But it's like, what do you do? You don't want to change your quality. But that's why the other things matter. What's the topic of conversation? I guess. But I think people that are more technically inclined are ones that would make it and it attracts other more technically inclined people because they recognize that quality. I recognize the hard work. Yeah. But I also take it to me, it's like I take it seriously. I get asked all the time about my microphone. I take it. This is like, Dude, this is my job. Same for you. It's not like this is some hobby in your free time, right? Yeah, because this is why I do this. I invest so much in order equipment. Right? So yow, silly, if you didn't invest in it, it would be like, jay, what are you doing with your life? You're buying only video games and definitely no only fence. Definitely no only fence. Yeah. You need to cut down the subscriptions on there. There's a limit. And Jay hit it. Wait, so you're set up Desk Grinder other than a camera, and then you have your iPad, your Teleprompter, and then you have a RODECaster into your SM seven B, right? Yeah. So I'm using the RODECaster duo, which I was using the RODECaster for the longest time. And I always just felt so silly because I have no intention whatsoever of using the other channels. And at least with the RODECaster duo, I would possibly use two channels. So I like that. And I was always saying, like, if they come out with a smaller one. So I'm using the RODECaster duo that also has the headphone output that I have going in now. But that just plugs also into my USB dock. That's cool. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, I was going to say lighting, too. Oh, yeah. What light do you use? So I'm using two Led circular video lights. One, I believe, is 18 inches. One is twelve inches. Oh, they're not the same size. No, because that would make too much sense. No, because at my last office, my last house, it was basically in a corner. There was not a lot of light in there, so I needed more light. So I got one that was just more powered. And instead of getting two I think it's 18 inches. It might be even bigger than that, but it's big. I didn't want two Ginormous lights. And now in my office now, it's like all of this natural lighting, it's brightened. Right. And I think I saw a TikTok video. Of course it's a TikTok. We learned from TikTok. Right. I saw a TikTok video. They jay, your light shouldn't be balanced. Right. So that's why they can create some sort of shadow of dab that look more cinematic. I don't know if I like that. I'm one of those weird person that I like everything in symmetry. So right now, I have two lights. Right now I have the elgato air light. I think it's called the air light or the elgato light air or whatever. So I have two of them sitting 45 degrees from me. So that's why I have lights on both sides. And then I blacked out my window so I can control the light better. Nice. This is something I still play with. And the lighting changes now in my office because I have so many windows that the clouds and things like that, over the course of an hour, it will change. Lighting is one of those things that's like another rabbit hole that I've gone down quite a bit because I have a lot of different lights. And man, I can tell you what, I've tried the symmetry look. I've tried the darker look. If you scroll through my older videos, you'll see all sorts of lighting. What I've come down to, though, is like, the shadows are almost necessary because it just adds a more if it's too balanced, it almost looks too bright, I guess, from what I think now. But it's one of those things the more you look at it, the more you're like, Is this right? Is this right? Is this right? Yeah, because it's never perfect in our world, there's no perfection, so there's never a perfection. Is this right? It felt right. Other people are like, this look amazing. You're like, I don't know. I can see one duck spot over there. I can see one overexposed oily stuff on my forehead or something like that. Yeah, well, I will say brighter light makes it you look less tired, and then darker light makes you look more tired. But in the balance of those things, you look, to me, more healthy. If someone's overexposed, then it looks like a vampire. A vampire. And if it's underexposed, it looks like this person hasn't slept in eight months. Somewhere in the middle, it's like, man, this person looks great. And lighting can do that. Wow, this person looks great and healthy. Right. But that's the hard one to achieve, though. The balance is the hard one to achieve. Well, hard to nail, but at the same time, if you're doing it in the same spot, it's much easier because you have time and predictability on your side versus doing it in a new spot every time. That's hard. Got yow. All right, let's go back to the RODECaster. So why do you chose RODECaster compared to any other interface? I felt like they should a term for RODECaster or the Zoom P Eight or whatever. I think those are not exactly mixer, but it's a hybrid of mixer and auto interface. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. So why do you went with rollcaster compared to, like, focus, right? Scarlet or solid SSL Two or Mackie or something like that. Yeah. So I really like focus, right? And I've used Scarlett. I've used Mackie. Like mixing boards for streams and live streams and things like that. What I like about the RODECaster is I like the screen for one, just like showing the levels. I like how it displays the levels. I like the controls. Like, they're really easy, like knobs. I don't have to open up any software. I like the EQ. I like the flexibility in that. I like that if I did want to have a standalone recorder, I could just use this without a computer, which is cool. And I like that it has a little bit of features, like with the pads, if I ever want to play with that. I think they're really, for the most part, cheesy. It's not like I'm going to be using this effect too often, but I might. Hey, Jay, thanks for subscribing to my only fans. Yeah. I pay $5 a month, and you still haven't responded to any of my messages. You're my biggest fan. And Jay, this is the FBI calling. You know, I'm going to go now. I have a contract with a devil, so there might be a know. I don't know, Jay. You tell me. But yeah, I think those are cool. And then you know what's weird? That I just found out that Yamaha also have similar product. Yamaha makes everything. I know, but they never market. That's true. It's weird. I think they came out in April. I just found out, like, maybe a month ago. I'm like what's going on. And they have some pretty damn good features on those things, too. Dude, yamaha be making boat propellers. They're making probably motorcycles, guitars, audio, mixers. Where does it end? Where does it start? Are you a guitar player? Yeah, I have a guitar right here. Yeah. Okay. Lately, a fun trivia. I don't know if you know this, so you know Gibson, right? Yeah. Gibson has a last paw, right? So look at that. I never seen that eucalyptus before. Yeah, right? Not bad. Yeah. The trivia was apparently, I think, in the 50s or the could be wrong. I could get the timeline wrong. Yamaha made a guitar that looks like Les Paul, and then they got sued. So yeah, back then there's no patent on guitars and stuff like that. So my friend got one of those. And it sounds amazing, but there are only a handful of those guitars in the market. Yeah. I wonder if are they like collectors items? It's considered a collector item right now because there are only a handful of those in the market. Interesting. But it sounds amazing. It's heavy. It's really heavy. So that's your workflow, right before you start recording podcasts. So that's your audio going through, know? And then you have your camera, your lighting and stuff like that. But what do you use to record. Do you use Squadcast still? Or Riverside? No, I don't use Riverside. I used Riverside when I very first started my podcast. I have probably the all time record of running into every single issue that. Could wait what happened? But how long ago? I was a guest on a podcast. This weekend, something went wrong on Riverside, and it wasn't even me running. It just always something goes wrong, it's always a new Yow. Know, Riverside is like, I'm just an outlier of running into problems. But yeah, so I've been using Know, we did the episode together with Squadcast. That was really helpful for me. But I did run into a couple syncing issues that I also run into with Riverside. So I got to figure that out. Also, with the there's no, like, split screen export with Squad. There is backup. If you download the cloud backup, it's a split screen. Yeah, but then you have to sync the audio up. If you want to use a high quality audio, you have to sync the individual audio up in Final Cut or Premiere Pro. Does that make sense? Yeah, but for the high quality stuff, it's individual. So you have one video and one sorry, you have two videos and two audio tracks. And then if you want to do split screen, what I usually do is I bring into Descript and I have it do the split screen. I've never done that in Descript. So is it just a button? Yeah, they have a template to do split screen. Or if you manually import those two tracks into discriminate, are you using the new discrimin or are you using the classic yeah, when you manually import it, the two video files on there, it will give you the split screen already. I did that and it just did the one. This was like, I think on our episode, I believe. Oh, yeah. If you put both of our videos in there, it should show up as in a discrete it should show up as a split screen first, and then if you go to split scenes via active speakers, then it will change to. Like, I got to play with that again. I didn't see that. And I was like, because I like things fast, right? And so I was like, this is a bummer. But that actually is way better. When you download it from Squadcast, Yow would do it downloads two files, and then Yow would just drag both into Descript and then that's it. And then active speaker. Got it. Have you run into syncing issues? Unfortunately, yes, because all browser app, Riverside, Squadcast or whatever. Unfortunately, because I think it's how the audio and video sent. It's definitely going to have some syncing issues. Plus, you're recording on locally as well. So the audio that you download from Squadcast and Riverside, they are both locally recorded. So if anyone has Internet issues while recording, that doesn't register to the local recording. Does that make sense? So they might have some disregard. I came and said the word, but they have some differences between the Internet recording and then the local recording. So you would adjust for the delay. Let's say you will adjust for the delay, but in the local recording, they might not have delay on the audit. So there shouldn't be syncing issues in the local recording. No, got it. Yeah. But at the same time, it depends on your response, right? So let's say if you're recording and there's 1 second delay on the local recording, you'll have to wait for like 2 seconds, right, because you speak, right? And then 1 second after that, they will respond and then you wait for another second because for them to finish, then you respond. So technically it's a two second delay rather than 1 second delay. So on the local recording, you will have a two second delay between you and the speakers. And so what's your easiest work? Fastest workflow for that? When you download the file, do you check it real quick or something or. How do you so when you use Descript, I drop it into Descript, right? And then open the they will ask you if you want to make it, if you want to transcribe it and make it into a sequence. That's what you do. And then what I do is I check the starting point. So the first five minutes, I scrub through it and see how the conversation flow. And then the end point, see how the conversation goes to check if it's still sync, and then the middle point to check if it's still sync. That way, let's say if the first part is sync, the last part is not synced. Then you can start tracing back like, okay, this is when it's sort of split off and then you make a cut and then you drag the last file back and forth and then you go to the middle again. Yeah. So for me, it's first part, last part, and then middle part. If that's still not synced, then I start tracing, which is the part that's going to go. Yeah, because in the sequence file in Descript, once you move the sequence files, the transcriptions also follow too. So you don't have to worry about your transcription is going to be out of sync. That's cool. Yeah. What percentage would you say are out of sync? Depend? So far I would say maybe 2% or 3%. So let's say I have ten interviews, maybe one out of sync or two out of sync. So it's not too bad. That also depends on their computer and the internet, right? So let's say right now we are taking a gamble, like I gamble that you have a fast Internet. So we are recording in 4K, but typically I just record in 1080. This script is great. That's my workflow recording squadcast. I download it. I didn't even export from Squadcast to this script because Squadcast doesn't let you rename yet. So for some project, I want them to rename so I can see the name in Descript. Then I would download it and then put it in Descript. That is super helpful. Yeah, that's super helpful. Now I'm like I want to try it again because I was bringing it into Final Cut Pro, and I'm like messing around with it. And I'm like, anytime I have to use a new program or any new exporter, I'm like, oh, this is going to kill it. Because you know what's weird? I've never had a syncing issue with Ecamm or Drift issue, I guess you could call it. I think Ecamm is an app, right? And do they recode locally? I don't remember. I don't think so. I don't know. Yeah, if they don't record locally oh, probably. Actually, do they record locally? Well, because I'm recording it to my computer, so it probably does record locally. But is your guest record locally? Well, the guests would come in no, they would go on as far as I know, they would go on Google Chrome for then. But it's basically almost like a live show, if you think about it. But it's recording locally on my computer. But if they cut out yeah, it's not recording the same, I don't think, as where even if their connection fluctuates, it's still recording to their computer. I don't think that's happening. Yeah, so I think Squadcast and Riverside, how they work is that they record like, now we are recording. So they record locally to your cache or Ram. I think it's more like cache because it record on your hard drive and then yow outload it. So once you clear the cache, then you lose the file. So that's why the local recording how the local recording works in Squadcast and Riverside compared to Ecamm. Ecamm is like, I think they send the guest audio to you, but they also create a separate track for the guest audio so you have multi track even though they are not recording locally. Not sure, got it. That makes sense. Yeah. So that's why Ecamm, you're not going to get audio drift Zoom, you're not going to get audio drift because an app and they are not accessing their hard drive or whatever, doing local recording or stuff like that. But yeah, I like this script because it's very easy to edit stories. Yeah. So easy. It makes normal editing where I have to listen to what's being said just seem so inefficient. And then you can spit it up, and then you can just scrub to it. I'm like, okay, this part is boring. I'm just going to scroll, like, a couple of page down, and I'm going to start editing from there. Once you're done recording, do you still put it into this script, or do you like now it's just in Final Cut Pro? Because Final Cut pro is your. End software, right? No, not always. Well, I treat Descript pretty much like Google Drive in a way where I want all my files in there, ideally, because I can come revisit them in the future and I don't have to download upload, import export save. It's just in the cloud. So are you asking for podcasts or for more any videos I make on. My own for podcast, and then I'm going to ask about the social media stuff because social media is great. I love your video. I'm like, oh, this is great. And now I learned something about history. Now. You'Re one of the few people that follow that page. You happen to find that one. I don't know exactly how you found that one, but that's like a test page. Like, I do a lot of experimenting on there. Oh, I meant to tell you that. Yeah, I saw you follow and I was like, oh, but that's not like my real yeah, it's so random if you see the posts and it's because I'm testing things all the time. You have a Dylan Smush and then you have the digital podcaster. So I follow both. I have multiple pages. That's just two messages. Dropping the bucket, Jay. That's why I'm like, Why do you have two pages? I'm like, yeah, I know. I got more than that. Yeah, I got a personal page that I don't really post anything on, but it's more like family and stuff. And then I have content clips, which is my business page. And then I have a couple of other accounts that I'm not actively posting on, but I have because I got really good usernames, but I'm like, man, I want to do something with these. But I'm still logged into them. But yeah, so the page you follow is like me testing things, and that's why it's a little bit random. There's no niche that I'm following. There's no business goal behind it. It's really just like my interests and testing what works. I get a feel for the algorithm on those videos because there's not a clear goal. So I like the freedom of experimentation on there because I get a lot of data with those videos that you see and how I edit them in certain ways that really only make sense to me. But they give me data and feedback on how the algorithm is working, what colors, designs, and intricacies within the video that help me inform things that I might do with clients or with my own videos. Wait, does how you edit the video or the colors affects the algorithm? Everything matters, man. Wait, really? Everything? It's like a big brother looking at your videos like, hey, this is red. Let us give him plus five. Yes. Basically also with the captions, how the captions are built into the video, how much of I take up the video. Right, I heard that. So if yow use your captions in the app, they will boost your algorithm a little bit because you're staying in the app longer. Or I could be wrong. Well, not necessarily. The captions built in the app itself, there's theories, right. Nobody knows exactly how the algorithm works, so we're left to figure out things on our own. I don't even think Adam Moziri, like, head of Instagram knows exactly because there's just so many things happening. Right. It's not like a one track freeway. So there's theories that if you use the built in caption function, like the feature in there where it adds the caption to your video inside the app, that transcribes the video, and then it creates that caption. And then there's theories that that then pushes it out. It's easier for the algorithm because it knows more about what's in the video. But years ago, if you look at even Photos, instagram had the technology to know what was in the photo, and there were things that would happen. It was like if it was a photo of a flower on a sunny day, it could be able to describe the photo. That was years ago. So we can only assume that with videos, it's the same. It's like it knows everything inside the video. I remember, I think when they released it or when someone found out and everyone loses their mind, like, oh my God, they are going to come. They're going to come at us. They know everything in our photo. Oh, my God, this is going to be the end of humanity. I'm like, okay. Yeah. And that's like the least of our worries now. I know. Yeah. Now it's like, oh, AI is going to take over. Our job going to replace us. Yeah. I just saw on Reddit because are you an iPhone or Android? Iphone. Iphone. I just saw on the newest iOS 17 update on Reddit this morning, someone was like, I hit like, this limit, or whatever. I think iOS 17 can detect if you're sending like a nude photo. Yes. So it'll send you a warning. Are you sure you want to send this? Yes. It's like a feature. I think they announced it on the big stage. I was surprised people only found out. Right now, but I didn't watch the whole thing. There's time to watch. But I wanted to. Yeah. Every time when they have all this thing, I always have, like even though when I'm doing interview, I still watch it. I'm like, I want to see what's see. I want to see how many more camera can they add to the back of an iPhone. Yeah, I want to see how much similar can they make the iPhone this year. You know what's crazy, Jay, and I think you can appreciate this, and especially on the topic of what we're talking about, I find it so hard to find the details or any excitement around the innovation of the front facing camera. Every camera that's updated or every phone that's updated. I always look at like, what's the front facing camera like? It's so buried in everything. And I find that weird because so many of us take selfies and with videos, especially videos for social media and stuff, it would be so easy to just use the front facing camera. And it's just like always hidden in there. And there's not a ton of innovation that happens. 14 had a big upgrade. Yeah, but because if you think about it, it's only one camera. It's so small. And then you can't add flash. I think they used to add flash in there and then no, what happened is back then, when you take, like, Frying camera with the flash, they would just make your whole phone flash white for 2 seconds. Do they still do that? Maybe. I think they still do that, yeah. So there's no animations in the Frying camera. That can be because for iPhone they can be. But I look forward to that. I'm like make the front camera better, please. In the 14. It did get better, but I was looking for that on the 15 and I didn't really it's basically the same as the 14 because they have to. Put neuro whatever, the infrared and the front camera, and then they have to put what's called the lock, the face, whatever it's called face is in the front camera. Yeah. So they have so much to pack into that small black bar now. They call it a dynamic island. I think they could, but I don't know if they want to spend that much money. All I'm saying is just I live in a world where anything's possible, Jay. That's all I'm saying. I know, it's definitely possible. It's just that they might not want to do it because there's no return. Which is weird because I felt like nowadays I was talking to my friend, is that the word has gone to if you're a teacher, you would make no money. But if you're influencer on Instagram, just have half topless or half naked picture, you make million dollars. That says so much about society. Yeah, but it's been like that for a minute and I mean, you scroll TikTok sometimes you'll see teachers even posting specifically, is this really this teacher should be posting this. I know, but to be fair, they're. Like making no money. I feel so bad for them. Yeah. What a time to be alive. What questions did you have about yes, sorry. But yeah, I was about to ask you, is your final cut at the end of the chain? So after your Descript, do you export it to final Cut and do it there or do you just like descript is like the last chain. Descript is the last yeah, sometimes lately I've been using actually, CapCut before I go to Descript for the auto reframe tool. Wait, for your podcast? Oh, no, sorry. For solo videos? No. Yeah, for podcasts. I try to keep everything as much as possible in Descript. If that means sacrificing some of the animations and stuff, I'm cool with it because it's just simpler. I try to make things simple. Okay, cool. Do you ever use the timeline spot to final Cut? I have, yeah. I will say too, actually I use for client podcasts, actually, it doesn't end in Descript. It goes into Logic where then I'll do it. But for my own podcast, I just go from Descript out. Got you. I try to do everything as like simple and blocky in Descript. But for client stuff that needs a little bit more fine tuning, then I'll go into Logic and then whatever. Got you. Host all right, now to your solo video. Because the reason why I asked, because they sent me the Scarlet two I two. I tried to do a review videos before, and it's horrible because I suck. So what's your workflow like when you do those review and solo video? Do you write a script first or do you like, I'm just going to wing it. Or do you just start shooting right away before you're writing a script? And then. Also, why didn't Focusrite send me? When they send me the Vocaster, they're like, this guy is good. I don't know if I'd replace the RODECaster, but I want free. Mean they send it to me. I'm just saying. I don't know. I can say I know, Jay and maybe they'll give me a free one. I don't know what I would do with it either. But at the same time, who doesn't just love free stuff? I am using it. It's great. Yeah. So here's my thought process especially. And this is like partly around brand stuff too, because it's kind of nerve wracking to me, the idea of working with brands. Yeah. Because there's expectations there versus like, I can do whatever the heck I want. So with brands, I look at it like, what's the idea? I feel like with gear, trends are easier to do than other stuff. So I'll typically look at my feed and just kind of scroll through and see some ideas. There was one I did with the Vocaster for Focus, right. That did pretty well on Instagram. And it was basically just my podcasting setup. I think it was like my solo podcasting setup. And I had just an overview shot, if I'm remembering it right. I think it was like a stop motion video, but it was just like one overhead shot. And it was like of my kitchen table. And I think it just was like one thing at a time. If I didn't do that, I'm going to probably do that again. Or you could use that. But it's like just ideas, right? Like the idea is what's going to make it the most interesting of how you're presenting it without it feeling like an ad. So I thought that was pretty cool. It was just like an overview because naturally people ask me what's a good podcast set up for a solo podcaster and so I was like, oh, let me just feature this. So I try to think of the idea. The review game is so in depth because you can talk about so many things on social media if you got like that's why trends are easier because you're telling the story. Of just what the gear is and letting the comments kind of open up for discussion about the gear versus trying to answer something inside the video itself. If that makes trend, what's that? What is trend? So trends like music trends where you're not talking, it's just something that is happening in the screen and then that's it. It might have text on the screen or something but there's no talking so there's no explanation. So it's like music underneath or you're like, hey, this is my setup and then just boom boom boom boom boom. Yeah, exactly. There's maybe not even showing your face anytime you talk into it it adds like a different kind of direction. Right? It's like a talking head video versus just like a non talking head video which is focused on the story of whatever the product is that you're featuring. Okay, talking head videos, it's a different game, I should say. And trends are primarily non talking head videos. They're primarily music driven, like around a certain song or like a way you feature something. It might be like a trend around people taking something out of the oven or something. And so that would be like an example of a trend non talking video. Okay, so you prefer that over than talking for gear stuff? Well, for most stuff, yes. I find talking videos much easier because I've done it so many times. But I think more if you scroll through your feed, I bet there's way more popular videos that are non talking videos. Like those are typically more popular. Gotcha. Wait, so okay, so how do you decide what shot you're going to do? Or do you just go with your feeling and I assume you're shooting it on the Sony, the Z One B is it? Or do you want the iPhone? Yeah, I go with whatever is the simplest and what kind of just gets the job done. Because the lighting too if I'm going to be shooting it at my desk, for example, I'd probably want it a little bit darker in here if I was like shooting my desk, because the smallest little dust will show up and it will look like I have not cleaned my desk, even though it's clean. So I'll probably do like my kitchen table because it's like wood grain and doesn't show as much dust. But my desk is black, everything's black on here so it just shows dust and it's kind of like it looks better than it looks like on camera. I have a mouse pad. Excel mouse pad. And those are the worst. Those are the worst. And I have a dog that have like, shed like freaking mammoth. Yeah, to my eyes this looks pretty good, but on camera it looks like scratched up and everything looks like what? I know. Those are the worst. Wait, so you shot it with whatever you have and then do you bring into Descript? So for non talking videos, I'll edit it in Final Cut because Descript, with it being like a transcript based editor, it's not ideal to me for effects and just like non talking videos because it's like not as I could do it in that, but I am much faster and more fluid in final cut. So if it was just like shots that aren't pertaining to talking, then I would do it in final cut for talking. If I didn't mess up at all and I wasn't in a big rush, I would just do it in final Cut because I can add in more effects. I can just make it look way more high quality. I can spend more time with the edit. With the script, I'm limited by the effects that are built in, which is pretty minimal. Right? So I like final cut if I've got time. I've spent 4 hours on like a 22nd video that you would have never thought it was repurposed podcast clip, 4 hours and I made it in final cut. And it's like so intricate and all these little details, right? And it probably didn't do that well. On average, how long does it take you to do one video? Like 130 2nd video that you do on Instagram? Like those, like the solo video? It depends so much because I have editors that work for content clips and then I have editors that edit videos for me that I'm testing things with. So if you probably can notice, there's not an exact coherent theme in the style of edits. With most of my videos at certain time periods, you could probably find certain ones that I did, but it really depends. Is there a specific one? I don't remember the history one, I think. History of the SM. Seven B. No, not the one. The one that you said you did it for just to test it out. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I make those videos on that account actually all the same way. So I make those into script. Oh, wait, but all your graphic looks so good, though. Do you do autographic in Final Cuts or Pro or everything's in Descript. Wait, how do you do all? Do you have the green screen effects or whatever? Yeah, so that's like something I've been testing is I test the green screen effect. I record it like on here, where I'm just doing like a teleprompter, and then I drag it into Descript. I activate the green screen because that takes like a couple of minutes to figure out. And then I just start editing it. And each scene in Descript creates essentially how I would think of how long something is on the screen for. So then I'll drag in certain things. So I'll either use the stock footage I went through like a string of just testing like galaxy backgrounds, those are backgrounds inside the script. And then I'll overlay footage, depending on how much time, energy, desire I have, is like if I'll bring in footage, I find in footage from really obscure places sometimes. So it depends on the actual video, but of where I bring in the footage from. Yeah, because I look some of your videos like, oh my God, this is so well edited. There's so much graphics. Yow, do you do this? Do you do a bunch of keyframes in Descript? Yeah, keyframe in Descript is like twelve annoying 15. Yeah. Okay. So there is like a way of doing it. There's like a zoom in effect, and that's basically like key framing it where you can make it bigger or smaller. So I use that a bit. But I was also testing, do I need to even do this? Because I'm like, what's the minimum I need to do? So I've tested even if I don't even resize the video of myself talking. So I'm testing all this stuff. And the green screen is cool though, because it opens up a lot of possibilities. It lets you make something else, the focus a bit more while still including your face. Yeah, I should try the green screen more. Yeah, I like the green screen. I just never trust well, I mean, I love Descript, but I just never trust any of their plugins, any of their effects. You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh, totally. But they all kind of have their quirks CapCut is really good, but I want to do everything as simple as possible. And if I can do it in Descript, I'm going to do it in Descript because I don't want to have to use the second thing. I wish the stock footage finder kind of thing was easier. Yeah, it also takes sometimes too. Yeah, it would take some time to load and then sometimes it doesn't catch any keyword and stuff like that. Yeah, that is annoying. I mean, it's still a great software. Yeah. Then I can add the captions in there as well. That's cool. Okay, so yow, I know what to do. I think for the focus, right. One, I'm just going to do like a bunch of this video. That's it. Rather than talking about this, I might write something about it. I mean, it's great. Do you know, apparently they have the pair preamp on the new Scarlet, so you can pair channel one and two together. So when you move one knob, it just bring both volume up. So it's good for a keyboard that's really keyboard in there. And then they have these functions called safe. So what it does is so let's say you set a volume and then you started yelling and it's peaking rather than it picks. It will bring down your preamp because the preamp is VPOD, so it would digitally bring down your preamp. So I think that was cool. And then they have two air mode now rather than just one. So they have the air and then they have the air plus drive. So let's say you're recording guitars or you're singing. You want some saturation in your voice. I think that's good. That's cool. Yeah. And then I think the premium is pretty big. You should just ask them to send you one. I know, right? I know. Yeah. That air. They have the auto gain, right? Yeah. I never like auto gain, man. I always advise, but yeah, just don't use auto gain. And then the direct input, they have the mono and stereo. I think that was great. And apparently according to them so let's say if you don't want to use, you have no computer, but you still want some preamp for, let's say live sound. Right. So apparently you can put they have a five volt connection at the back. It's like a plug to a five volt. You plug it in, you power up the scarlet and then you plug it in. It will serve as a pass through. So you will have preamp. Yeah, you have preamp that can connect to a live sound without computer. That's cool. So it's like a mixer a little bit. That's really cool. That's really cool. Yeah, I like that a lot. I like that a lot. Well, I want to see your content now. I don't know if I can make as good as yours. No, don't even shoot something. I think I have to buy new mouse pad for shooting video. You're going to fall in that trap. I know, because my mouse pad is not that dirty. But I bought so much stuff thinking like, I'm going to buy this and this is going to make this easier. And at the end of the day, I don't use any of the stuff that I ever bought for making that thing easier. It's like 10% of the time or less. Same with plugins, right? When we were in the music industry, how much do you spend on plugin? I think I spend close to 20,000 on plugins. And then how many times do I use 80% of the plugins? Once. Twice? Yeah. Once. Yeah. And it's like we're really good at that. Yeah. Soon Jay. Yeah, but thank you so much for answering all the questions. But I think I might start my own show on workflow. I think that's going to sounds pretty fun rather than marketing and stuff like that. Yes. And would you record video too? Yeah, I mean, it's nice to have if I need it. And then I can just cut a clip. And then if I want to put as a full video then I can just export as a full video. Please do it, Jay. Yes. We need a podcast from you. Thank you. Anyway, thank you so much for jumping on.